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Transactional Love 10.18.26 · St. Paul Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_01: Hi everyone and welcome to the St.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: Paul Podcast.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: My name is Mark Neethammer, Senior Pastor at St.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: Paul Lutheran Church, located in Davenport, Iowa, part of the Greater Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Right here, each week, you will find beautiful music and a message of hope and good news to guide your life.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm hopeful that this podcast can inspire you and help you on your journey of faith as you grow in love and trust in our God.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Today we continue our journey through Matthew's gospel.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: This reading begins a series of three debates Jesus has with community leaders in the days leading up to his arrest.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Hoping to force Jesus to pick a side, they ask a question they believe has only two possible answers.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus responds with a question of his own, offering a new perspective.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: Hear this reading from the 22nd chapter of Matthew.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, Teacher, we know that you are sincere and teach the way of God in accordance with the truth, and show deference to no one, for you do not regard people with partiality.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Tell us, then, what you think.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?
4:09
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Show me the coin used for the tax.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: And they brought him a denarius.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Then he said to them, Whose head is this and whose title?
4:27
SPEAKER_00: They answered, Caesar's.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Then he said to them, Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: When they heard this, they were amazed, and they left him and went away.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' response to the Pharisees and Herodians leaves us with much to consider.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: They try to force him to choose a side, but Jesus refuses their narrow categories.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: But we know that pressure too.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: The pressure to decide where we belong and what our choices say about us.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: So, in a complete change of direction, but I promise it's relevant.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know the movie Mean Girls?
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Or really any stereotypical high school teen movie?
5:21
SPEAKER_00: There's this famous cafeteria scene.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: The tables are filled with the stereotypical high school groups, often depicted in teen movies, and Katie the new girl has to decide where to sit, knowing that her choice will identify her with a group and with every assumption others make about that group of people.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: Sound familiar?
5:46
SPEAKER_00: This practice of grouping people together and making assumptions about their unstated values is a practice that endures long after we leave our high school cafeterias.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: We're categorized by our job titles, our political affiliations, our education, family structures, religious beliefs, hobbies, even our favorite sports teams.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes those labels are useful.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: They help us find community and connection.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: They can also become boxes that others use to define us, or lines drawn in the sand that pressure us into taking sides.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: The pressure to choose sides is also not a new concept.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: In our gospel reading, Jesus is questioned by people who have already decided that he must belong to one side or the other.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: They're not seeking understanding.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: They're looking for a way to trap him into picking sides.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus refuses to play by their rules.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: This is the first of three debates that Jesus has with various religious leaders in this section of Matthew's gospel.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: And the Pharisees and Herodians are kind of unlikely associates.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: The Herodians are supporters of the Roman government, kind of overseeing that work.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: And the Pharisees are concerned with the religious law and faithfulness.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: So two different ends of the spectrum, at odds a lot of the time, but they unite in this moment to challenge Jesus.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Their question about paying taxes to Caesar creates a no-win situation.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus says yes, pay the taxes, he risks alienating the religious authorities and the people that are burdened by this Roman taxation system.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: If he says don't pay the taxes, he risks charges of treason from the government.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Together the Pharisees and Herodians are hoping to put the first nail in the coffin.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: One way or the other, he's gonna have to say something that upsets someone.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: They're not asking what faithfulness looks like in a complicated world.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: They're not hoping for a right answer.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: They're hoping Jesus will say something that they can use against him.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: And we know what it's like to ask questions or be asked questions where there's only one acceptable answer.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the point of the conversation isn't to understand the person, but to expose them, embarrass them, or force them to admit their allegiance to one thing or another.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: What side are you on?
8:53
SPEAKER_00: We see this in politics, our communities, in our families, even in the church.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: We can become so focused on identifying which side someone is on that we stop listening to what the other person is actually saying.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: When winning the argument becomes more important than loving the human being in front of us, even our most sincere sounding questions can become traps.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: Jesus sees through the intentions of these leaders and he gives the answer no one expected.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: He asks them a question in return, something Jesus is fairly fond of doing.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And they all answer Caesar's.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: Rather than accept the terms of the debate that they're trying to start, Jesus exposes the narrowness of the choices that he's been offered.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Jesus redirects their attention to the larger question at hand.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: The question is of ownership, allegiance, and faithfulness.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: The coin bears Caesar's face and title.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus' answer raises the question, whose image matters most?
10:28
SPEAKER_00: The coin may bear Caesar's image, but the people holding it to bear God's image.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: Scripture tells us that all humankind is created in God's image.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Not just the people we understand or agree with or welcome, but all of humankind.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: That means the people standing before Jesus that are questioning him are made in God's image.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: The same people trying to entrap him.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: Caesar too is made in God's image, as are the people standing by hoping for some relief from this tax system that's been crushing them.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: The coin may belong to Caesar, but the people do not.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: And that changes the question.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and give to God the things that are God.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Jesus finds this way to thread the needle between the two groups.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: And he's not merely offering a compromise or separating religious life from civic responsibility.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he leaves his listeners with the question, what belongs to God?
11:47
SPEAKER_00: We do, and so do our neighbors, the people we agree with and the ones we don't, the people at our table and those sitting at the tables we avoid.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: We all belong to God.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: And if we belong to God, then our lives cannot be neatly divided into compartments.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Faith doesn't only belong at church, our civic responsibilities do not end at the ballot box.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: The love of neighbor is not left for only when it's convenient.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Our faith shapes all of it.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: What then is the currency of God's kingdom?
12:28
SPEAKER_00: If Caesar has coins stamped with his face, what do we offer God?
12:35
SPEAKER_00: We offer the fruits of lives shaped by grace.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: We offer mercy, humility, love, patience, kindness, generosity.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: We feed the hungry, we welcome the stranger, care for the poor, and show up for our neighbors.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has taught throughout his ministry that salvation cannot be earned, bought, or traded.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: God's love is not transactional and we do not earn God's favor.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: God's grace is a gift, and because it's a gift, we're free to turn toward our neighbors.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: We don't love our neighbors to earn God's love.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: We love our neighbors because God first loved us.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: We don't care for the poor to prove that we're righteous.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: We care for the poor because they bear God's image, and because God's kingdom is marked by mercy and justice and compassion.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: The gift of faith is that we're saved by God's grace alone, not by our works.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: But grace doesn't leave us unchanged or uninvolved.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Grace frees us from having to prove our worth to anyone.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: And that freedom sends us out into the world to love and serve our neighbors the best ways that we can.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes grace sends us into civic life, paying taxes that support the shared work of our communities, asking whether the systems in place serve their intended purpose, voting, advocating for our neighbors, holding leaders accountable, investing in our communities, and speaking up when others' needs are ignored.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Jesus does not give us a political program to follow.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't resolve every tension between faith and government.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't declare every government act uh action just or promise that every difficult decision has one right answer.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Jesus leaves us to find the balance, guided by our knowledge of what the kingdom of God is meant to be.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: And that can be uncomfortable.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: Because we must still make hard decisions within systems that can both do good and cause harm.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: We must discern faithfulness amid disagreement, limited resources, and overwhelming need.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: But perhaps we can start by simply changing the question that we're asking.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: Instead of asking which side are you on, we can ask who is my neighbor.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Instead of asking, how can I prove I'm right, we can ask what might I learn by listening to their story.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: And instead of asking what we owe, we can ask my how we might use our voices, our resources, and our relationships to make God's love more visible in the world.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: And these questions will not erase our disagreements, and they don't require us to ignore injustice.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Loving our neighbor may mean challenging harmful systems, speaking difficult truths, and refusing a status quo that causes harm.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: But it does mean remembering that the person on the other side of the argument is still made in God's image.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: We spend so much of our lives debating where we belong, which tables are ours, what others will assume when we sit down.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: And labels can help us find community.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Before any label is placed on our lives, there's a deeper truth.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: We are created in the image of God.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: That's the first label given to us, and the one that matters most.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: We are created in the image of God, and so are the people sitting across from us.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: The person at the table we avoid, the neighbor whose needs may be inconvenient, the stranger whose story we don't yet know, the person we most deeply disagree with all are created in the image of God.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: We belong to God, and our lives are meant to bear witness to God's love.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: We may disagree about what that requires or how to balance our civic lives and faithfulness.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: We may not know the best way to serve our communities, but we can keep returning to the unwritten question that Jesus puts before us.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Whose image do we bear?
17:38
SPEAKER_00: We can keep asking how our lives might reflect that image.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Not to earn God's love, but to share God's love in the ways that we have already received it.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: So give to God what is God's.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Now and forever.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: In a divisive world that encourages us to pick sides, remember that every person bears the image of God.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: You are claimed and loved.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: May your life make God's love more visible in the world.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: I hope you've enjoyed this podcast and thanks for your support of the ministries of St.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: Paul Lutheran Church.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: Our commitment to endeavors that lend hope to other people stretches across the country and around the world.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: We hope that in a good way you feel a part of that reach.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: Tune in next Thursday for another edition of the St.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: Paul Podcast.